New York City's Soho Repertory Theatre will begin its 1999-2000 season with a series of workshops, running Dec. 1 through Jan. 21, 2000, and featuring new works by favorite Downtown playwrights Mac Wellman and Richard Maxwell.

New York City's Soho Repertory Theatre will begin its 1999-2000 season with a series of workshops, running Dec. 1 through Jan. 21, 2000, and featuring new works by favorite Downtown playwrights Mac Wellman and Richard Maxwell.

Soho Rep, which celebrates 25 years in existence this season, began a new regime under new artistic director Daniel Aukin earlier this year. The shortened 1998-1999 season (which did not begin until January 1999), included a new work by Maxwell, Cowboys & Indians, and the company's annual "Summer Camp" series of short plays.

The 1999-2000 series of workshops runs as follows (all performances are at 7:30 PM):

* Christina (Dec. 1-4) by Marina Shron, directed by Amy Boyce, a study of teenage sexuality (the title character is a child prostitute) and middle-class mores.

* Cat's Paw (Dec. 8-11) by Mac Wellman, directed by Daniel Aukin, the playwright's version of a Don Juan play, though without any male characters. * 5 (dates TBA), directed and written by Yehuda Duenyas, the author's latest work, which "marries the precision of a hairpin turn with a sublimely meditative vision."

* Snatch (Jan. 12-15, 2000) by Peter Rose, directed by Linsay Firman, the British playwright's tale of two college students, their cruelty toward a fellow female student and her defense against them.

* A new play by Richard Maxwell (Jan. 18-21, 2000), the author of House and Showy Lady Slipper and owner of a seemingly bottomless trunk of scripts, all of which boast his already familiar stripped-down, deadpan style.

* 12 lb. Discourse (Dec. 2, 9, and 16 at 10:30 PM) by Matt Scheck and Pete Simpson, who also perform; the hijinks of "two clueless philosophers of life," Bill and Bill.